Spiderwebs of Mental Gum Arabic: The Modernist Machines of Elmer Diktonius

Abstract

Abstract This article examines Elmer Diktonius's avant-gardist poetry, prose, and literary criticism, published between 1921 and 1951. Diktonius often entangles Swedish and Finnish in his writing, inducing a disorienting effect that contributes to his avant-garde agenda and separates him from the literary establishment of his day. Looking at his Swedish-language poetry and personal letters illustrates a viscous material poetics fashioned by the author's soldering of languages, genres, rhythms, and sounds. Considering the skillful ways Diktonius processed language reveals how the author challenged literary categories separating poetry from prose and epistle from art.